Hi Kat, thought it might comfort you to hear that men experience this as well. I am a former high-school baseball player, I study martial arts, and specialize in hand-to-hand combat and weapons disengagement. I've also been school for psychology for 7 yrs and have no problem gettting up in front of a room full of doctors to give a presentation. Amazingly, this is all I can do. I am absolutely petrified of most social situations; but most of all, situations where I have the opportunity to meet women. Intimacy frightems the hell out of me! I have no solid family background or healthy role models, but I suppose I need to take personal responsility. In my distorted little world, I need a woman to approach me and establish a strong rapport, then its go time. I guess it's a safety issue. I'm bad at making new male friends as well. In both cases, I geuss I feel like I won't measure up. I know it's a bunch of crap, but no one ever said emotions were logical. I believe, hold on, I know that a larger portion of men deal with this sort of stuff (and other stuff) and just aren't strong enough to acknowledge it; the intentional blindness I refer to as awareness-induced extroversion.
